So you're in a Self insert 3? Teaser Trailer
by Empeorie
Summary: Not the full story. A hundred SI's are in the same place, all at once. But for what purpose? For education! Read the trailer for the most anticapted guide to SI's of all time! Second chapter has actual tips! May include your SI!
1. Chapter 1

_**So you're in a self insert Three teaser**_

_**Crossover crisis**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>HELLO SUBJECTS!<strong>_

_***Cough cough. Ow. Any way, welcome to the teaser for So you're in a self insert three. Sorry it's so short, but it is a teaser.**_

_**The story so far. In chapter two, mysteriously, out of the blue, about 100 SI's appeared on the Citadel. Ranging from the famous Ian and Art, to the unknown, like Elle, to the downright shit, like Reko-Lunas Alex (No relation to me or any other Alex.) They are stuck inside a enormous warehouse, with seemingly no escape...**_

* * *

><p>"So wait." Said Art. "We are all in the same universe?"<p>

"It would seem so..." Said Ian mysteriously. There was a brief pause.

"Bagsy Tali!" Shouted Art.

"God dammit!" shouted Ian.

"Hey, romancing her stopped being cool since 2011." Said Lucas.

"Isn't it 2011 were you came from?" Asked Art.

"Nope." Said Alex.

"Huh. How is Mass Effect three?" Asked Ian.

"Ending is fucking shite!" Shouted roughly 30 people.

"Really? Shame..." Said Serena.

"hEy guYs." Said Alex.

"Shut up!" Shouted Alex, Ian and Art.

"hEy. DonmT make mE geT the minD kataNAs!" He shouted.

"Shut it Mary sue!" Shouted Raz. Alex then went quiet.

"So... Can anyone work out why we are here?" Asked Eric Langley.

"Perhaps I can help." Said a random Asari that appeared out of nowhere.

"AH!" We all screamed.

"Oh a Asari? How original." I said.

"Shut up!" Shouted Everyone.

"Sorry." I muttered.

"I am Deus ex Machina, the asari that brought you here." Said the asari.

"How does a asari go into alternate universes? That doesn't make any sense?" Asked Art. A indignant Ian could be heard shouting "Hey!"

"Look, the reason I brought you all here is so that the people of reality can learn how not to write self inserts." Explained Deus Ex.

"Then why am I here?" I asked.

"To write this all down for that guide that you were writing." Said Deus Ex.

"How does someone write a guide to travelling dimensions?" Asked Mark and Danniel.

"Wait a second. Wouldn't we have to go through all the games in order for us to get the full picture?" I asked. A few people could be heard muttering "I'm not going through all that again."

"Got that covered. Time travel." Said Deus Ex.

"Oh come on!" Shouted Art. "How does biotics give you the power of a DeLorean?"

"Hey!" Shouted Ian again.

"Wait, where are we going?" I asked.

"Tali's recruitment, in the time you refer to as Mass Effect One." Said Deus Ex.

"Bagsy saving her!" Shouted Ian.

"God dammit!" Shouted Art.

"Wait a second. Shouldn't we introduce ourselves to each other?" Asked Callum Maysfield.

"All right." Said Ian. We climbed a top of a crate. "Hey everyone, I'm Ian Shaw, um... I'm sure at least some of have heard of me?"

"Yeah." Said about 70 people.

"Oh..." Ian muttered, freaked out by the response. He stood down from the crate.

Next Art got on the crate.

"Hello. I'm Art *****. You guys have heard of me right?" Asked Art.

"Yes." Shouted almost the entire crowd. I single person could be heard saying "What kind of surname is Asterisk asterisk asterisk?"

"Cool." Said Art. He got down.

Seeing his chance, Alex (From Mass & Energy) Stood up on the crate.

"Hey, I'm Alex. I know you've heard of me!" He shouted.

No one responded. A total silence fell over the crowd. In the distance, a cricket croaked.

Before I could work out why there was a cricket on the citadel, another person stepped on the crate.

"Hello. I'm Jospeh Smeltzer. How many of you are mercenaries?" He asked. A few people raised their hands, including Alex.

"Hah! I'm the reason for it!" He shouted. He got down from the crate.

"So are we going to do what we were told to do soon or are we going to sit here introducing ourselves?" I asked.

"Fine, Mr Gumpy pants." Said Deus Ex. The entire one hundred strong crowd got covered in biotic energy.

"We have to go back, back to the..." Shouted Art.

"Done it before!" Shouted about thirty people.

"I hate this already." Said Art. Suddenly, the ground was removed from my feet and I felt like I was falling...

* * *

><p><em><strong>Told you it was short. I just wanted to get this idea out there and see if it's appropriate. If your SI wasn't mentioned come the real chapter I will reference almost EVERY SINGLE SI on this site. So, when that releases come August, check it out. Right, all character used so far:<strong>_

_**Art-Mass Vexations**_

_**Ian-Masses to Masses**_

_**Alex-Mass & Energy**_

_**Lucas-Mass Affect**_

_**Serena- Surviving hero**_

_**Alex- Twisted Angel**_

_**Eric Langley- The Langley Effect**_

_**Mark and Daniel-Mark and Daniel's Massively Effective Trip**_

_**Callum Maysfield- Wonderful Design**_

_**Joseph Smeltzer- Dead Echo**_

_**Thanks for reading.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**So you're in a Self insert Three trailer**_

_**Part two: Some Actual tips!**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hello! People of Fanfiction! Wow has the SI genre increased. Almost 40 new SI's since Mass Effect 3 was released. And that's only the ones on the community page. So now, more then ever, tips are need. If you're new to this check out my previous guides, but here are a few actual tips that will appear later on, enjoy:<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Spartan don't die, they travel dimensions or Crossover SI's<strong>_

_**(Thanks to Helljumper 1337 for this)**_

__Character xovers: SI in disguise.

I'm an avid Mass effect and Halo fan and I really like reading ME stories and Halo/ME crossovers.

Master Chief and Noble Six are two of the most badass Spartans ever, but the way their respective stories ended (Or not?) also makes them very sympathetic characters. So, naturally one of the ways people try to show their affection for them is by pairing them with one of the Shepard's squad members or Shepard her/himself when they write xovers.

Now, nobody has any problem with that. Even the people looking for blood, gore and explosions in fanfiction won't object when they see their fav Spartans having a romantic relationship with one of the ME squad mates as long as it's convincing and well written.

But recently, people have begun writing the Characters in their own image. What do I mean? I mean that they're basically writing SI and labelling them as a Spartans. I'll tell you how they do this.

It basically starts with the character being mysteriously transported to the ME universe, they join Shepard's crew, giving half-assed reasons for doing so, wreck everyone's shit up and even managing to overshadow Shepard. Then they go ahead and bang Tali.

Recognize this pattern from somewhere?

Before continuing any further, I'll admit that I'm being a hypocrite. Even I did most of the things mentioned above in my xover fic. But I'm also currently in the process of editing most of the chapters to correct all the mistakes that I've made myself.

With that out of the way, I'm gonna point out various things that most of the people are doing wrong, character wise.

1. Shepard: Shepard of either gender is a very strong and charizmatic individual (No shit). It doesn't matter if S/he's a paragon or a renegade, s/he doesn't take shit from anyone (Again, no shit), not even from a Spartan. So, FemShep isn't gonna go all 'Oh, you're my hero! I would've been helpless without you!' or a BroShep isn't gonna go all 'We couldn't have killed that thesher maw in foot without you!'...S/he's perfectly capable of doing all that her/himself and also, FemShep is NOT a blushing, giggling school girl. Believe me, someone (not gonna point out who) actually portrayed her that way.

2. Tali: Now, this applies to everyone trying to have their character romance Tali. Remember her conversations from the first game? One of the things that she tells you is that how other quarians would try to get close to her to get to her father because he's an admiral, y'know, political crap. Maybe I'm paraphrasing, but that's what she tells you. And you know what that means? It means that she's really careful with the kind of the company she keeps. And she's ESPECIALLY careful with any close relationship (Maybe one of the reasons she doesn't act on her crush on Shepard in the first game?). So, love at first sight is pretty much BS to her. Please keep that in mind when you're having your character of choice romance her. A few people I've seen pull that off convincingly are Herr Wozzek and Inf3ctionz, among very few others.

3. Master chief or any other Spartan in general will not just forget everything they went through during the war and instantly become good friends with the alien crew members of the Normandy, they don't like aliens. Period.

For example, the thought process of a Spartan who's talking to Garrus isn't about how cool he is or if they should hang out with him and have a drink, it's more along the lines of 'Which is the quickest way to disembowel him if he does anything remotely threatening to me?'  
>Harsh, but true.<p>

If you really want to have them to become friends, then show the actual buildup and not the convenient 'They spent considerable time together and are now best buddies'  
>Also, for the romance, you really have to work for the it to be convincing enough because a Spartan has little to no sexual drive and won't develop one like a normal human out of nowhere.<p>

In conclusion, don't write Halo/ME character xovers and portray a Spartan in your own image as if you're writing a SI. People like me can see through your shit.

P.S. A Mako cannot seat more than four people, Shepard would never take such a safety risk and stuff more than four squad members inside it.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Excellent tips, and that will be in the full version. Now for<strong>_

_**So you're in a self insert the essay, or everything in general**_

_**(Thanks to Rob DS Zeta for this)**_

* * *

><p>As a person who has been infatuated with the thought of a normal person (of our time and space) entering the world of a fictional universe for the last six or seven years, I know what it's like to have the SIOC fic on the brain. I've been writing (and deleting) them since 2008 or so, but I didn't quite get it figured out until about halfway through 2010. There are tons of choices and decisions to make, and a lot of them aren't easy.

Now, there are a few start up questions, most of which revolve around one person: the protagonist. Not the fandom's protagonist! Your protagonist! Who are they? Are they you? Are they an old RP bitch of yours? Are they just some guy who's been sitting around in the back of your head for the last couple of months? Whoever they are, they're gonna be your focus. You need to decide who they are and get them ready to face the facts of one thing: They've just been zoink'd out of their comfort zone and into the realm of the fandom.

Now, think about it. What is your character like? What's their mindset on a normal day? What's the polar opposite of that mindset? What's their backstory? How will they respond to seeing a video game/anime/movie/book character walk up to them and say "Howdy,"? Will they show their unpreparedness and freak out? Will they just stand there, stunned? Will they risk insanity and respond like it's just any other day? That's all your decision, and it's all gonna come together to characterize your budding hero… or villain, depending on how you're going about this.

Now, these guides have already gone over how to get on the squad/in the party (at least I think they have), so I'm gonna say this right now. There is no prewritten rule saying that you/your character has to go adventuring with the heroes. While I was writing A Thumbtack to the Skull, my seventeen chapter derppopotamus of an OC insert to Tales of Symphonia, I came upon a fascinating conundrum. I didn't want to go around writing these cookie-cutter RPG characters for oh-so many chapters, and my character knew that it wasn't gonna be a piece of Demon Fang to fight against the villains and raid dungeons. So, once everybody was off doing something, he lit out for the frontier. The chapters that came after that are what I openly refer to as some of best work. Why? Because they're original… if in plotline only. It was then that I realized that there's a whole damn world out there with stuff going on that doesn't pertain to the game's characters at all.

You can do anything you want to in the story. You are not limited by the plotline alone.

However, this fic is in the Mass Effect section. Mass Effect, almost to a fault in terms of believable party-joining, is one of those games with a pretty exclusive cast. Unlike in ToS, things are happening pretty fast and it's hard to be relevant without being on the party or dealing with some other canon characters. So… How about you wind up doing a few weeks/months/years (if you're daring) on Omega? You could join a merc group. You could get in with Aria's cartel. You could just go petty criminal, if that's your style. Just remember that, once game time comes around, you need to start being relevant.

Then there's the options. Oh boy, the options! Simple stuff like, who is your character going to be friends with? What missions are you going on? What weapons will you use? What types of weapons will you use? You can even go so far as to—depending on the age of you or your character—bring sexual prowess life into the matter (not graphically, mind you, but if you're going for realism…)! Will you shoot for Miranda? Kaidan? Thane? Tali? Or are you the most daring of all, gunning of the ever-paramour Commander Shepard?

Also with options come your power selection. Are you going to be a Regular Joe/Plain Jane and just be shooting people, or have you enough focus to learn some tech abilities? You could even be a biotic, should you undergo some exposure and wait x amount of years for the effects to show up. While you can't be totally overpowered and annihilate everything with your inferno ammo and Revenant LMG, you can't be a total page compared to everybody either. You need to establish yourself and face the fire, because the Normandy isn't gonna bring some dipshit Bob Nodick with them.

Okay, now that we're done talking about some of your options and creative decisions, let's talk about you and your relationship with the canon.

You are you, and nothing more. Stephen Crane once wrote a very good poem on the subject. It goes like…

A man said to the universe:  
>"Sir I exist!"<br>"However," replied the universe,  
>"The fact has not created in me<br>A sense of obligation."

Okay, maybe that's a little deep, but you get the idea!

The universe does not care about you. You are not the most significant being in the galaxy, and everybody around you knows it. Don't go flaunting yourself around the Normandy like everyone wants to see you and talk to you and discuss your day and blah blah blah you get it (I hope). They have their own lives, believe it or not, and it most certainly does not revolve around you. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't make friends with everybody. If you're a good person, they'll be good people back to you (except Wrex, because he's stone). On the other side of that, if you're a total pissant to everybody, nature dictates that they'll treat you like trash.

Similar things are true when it comes to combat. If you're good and help Garrus up when a geth knocks him over, he'll probably thank you and be your buddy. If you just walk by and leave him there, what's he gonna do if you get knocked down? He might help you up, but he could just as easily not. Remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

…Oh, and remember the other Golden Rule: Take cover or die. That'll help you write realistic battle scenes in the long run.  
>On the topic of battle scenes, they don't all have to be directed by Michael Bay. As iNf3ctioNZ says, There's only so many different ways you can dress up "I shot the geth, its shields went down, it died." Don't be afraid to cut out some of the action, because there's nothing more monotonous at times than reading a ground combat scene.<p>

Oh, and one last thing….

DON'T GO OVERBOARD! You know what overboard is. Mass Effect isn't Dragonball.

Okay, I'm gonna end this here. Hopefully I've left some room for somebody else to contribute.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Excellent points mate, now for some Empeorie flavour:<strong>_

_**.**_

_**Do the research, or always have ME wiki open:**_

.

This is simple. The Mass Effect universe is a incredibly detailed and rich universe, it sticks as close to true science as much as possible (Excluding element zero and F***ing space magic). Always have the Mass Effect wiki open whilst you are writing and check it, for descriptions, ideas, surprising information and keeping the SI as Cannonical (Close to the source) as possible. Another side tip would be to check out the Cerberus Daily news website. It is a absolute goldmine of in character reactions and explanations, as people from all over the internet pretend to be the little people we don't see in the game, trying to deal with the reaper invasion and general day to day news.

.

_**And there's a hint of the things to come for the sequel. Hope you enjoyed this and please, all new SI writers, check out the older parts of this series. You'll love it.**_


End file.
